What You Should Know About Indonesia's New Relations With E-Commerce Giant Alibaba

Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, is retiring to concentrate on charitable activities in education—and locally, that means preparing the younger generation to start online businesses. Indonesia will team up with the Alibaba chief executive to look into ways to use the e-commerce giant’s ecosystem to increase exports, particularly to China.

At a meeting with President Joko Widodo and prominent cabinet ministers at Bogor Presidential Palace on September 2, issues discussed spanned cooperation in developing Internet technology and e-commerce talent through to ways to encourage micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises to seize the opportunities that the Internet and digital markets present. Ma believes that the future of business in Indonesia will be driven by small- to medium-sized enterprises. “In Asia there are not many big businesses,” he said. “It is advisable for Indonesia to aptly encourage these small and medium businesses to enter e-commerce.”